


Open Season

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emperor Kylo Ren, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 17:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11236263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: Eight years ago, the Empire rose again -- with Kylo Ren at its head, and his leading general dead at his feet.Eight years later, old ghosts return to life -- and then find a new death for them both.But then, that is always where rebirth begins.





	Open Season

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on [the kylux softkinks prompt](http://kyluxsoftkinks.tumblr.com/post/161828774181/kylo-kills-snoke-and-becomes-emperor-hux-fleesa%20kyluxsoftkinks):
> 
> _Kylo kills Snoke and becomes Emperor. Hux flees, figuring surely Kylo will see him as a threat and kill him next. Kylo has him hunted across the galaxy until finally he's brought in, angry and disheveled. To his surprise, rather than imprisoned he's cleaned up and given food and clothing. Turns out Kylo didn't find him to try to kill him; he wanted to finally confess his feelings for him without fear of consequences, and now he can._
> 
> I was...haunted by the concept. Goddammit. With that said, I didn't _quite_ follow it to the letter, but hopefully there's enough of the spirit in it to make some sense of things. Also, I just really wanted Emperor Ren, for some reason. Oddly, for the subject matter, this is probably the softest I've written these two assholes, to the point where I'm like "...does this even make sense???" But...here we are. Something like a happy ending. wtf.
> 
> And a curse upon all those who encouraged this, goddamn every single one of you. :/ IT'S LIKE 10K WHY DO I DO THESE THINGSSSSSS

The air almost vibrated about him, heavy with the scent of engine oil and unfinished wood. Yet the engine itself remained quiescent and still under his hands, in so many pieces and parts that it should have been impossible to put it back together again. But he knew each of them: its function, and its failing. And if he closed his eyes, for a moment, he could almost _feel_ it. As if it were another living thing. It was just foolishness, of course. But, then, there had been someone, once—

The door of the workshop opened on a light creak, and the light voice of his young assistant cut through the air, just this wrong side of too nasal.

“Mr. Hywel?”

And he sighed, still holding the multi-tool in hand though whatever eccentric concentration he had fallen to had now completely evaporated. “Yes?”

The young man didn’t answer immediately, and Hux craned around to check that he hadn’t just imagined the interruption entirely. Yet he stood there, sandy-haired, ruddy tan complexion stretched easy over the broad flat bone beneath. But despite that well-developed body, there always remained something exhaustingly _young_ about him. Even when he had been that age himself, Hux had no particular memory of ever himself possessing such naiveté, such easiness of persona or person.

The large hands were linked before him now, blue eyes a little too wide, like a child called before a stern and unforgiving father. “There’s a customer just come in. I asked if he needed help, and he asked to speak to you.”

His hand tightened. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t give a name.”

“And you didn’t ask for one?”

“I…” It wasn’t just the sharpness of his question that had the young man looking this confused, Hux was certain of that. “…no. I didn’t.”

The faint coiling in his stomach felt like nothing so much as a venomous serpent, rousing sudden and strange from long shadowed rest. Not an inch of this showed upon his face; Hux kept his usual mask in place, his voice even and calm. He had not constructed it so carefully over so many years to have it fail at the slightest hint of unrest.

“I’ll deal with it.” Nodding back the way his assistant had come, he added with studied ease, “You can go on home. I’ll close up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Is there some reason why I shouldn’t be?”

“I…” Faltering, again, he seemed like a droid reaching for a programming code that lacked some essential executive function. Again, Hux felt it shift under his skin: a sense of disquiet, like a prey animal at its watering hole scenting a predator upon the changing wind.

“It’s fine.” For all the comforting bulk of the younger man, Hux knew physical strength might count for little, if his instincts served him as well as they ought. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Something like relief moved across his features for all Hux knew his own lie. “All right, Mr. Hywel.”

Hux had already turned away even as the other man set about gathering his coat, his bag. Only when he had slipped out the back of the workshop did Hux mirror any of his movement, though all he did was key the lock. There, he paused, forehead pressed to the crooked lintel, his mind nothing more than white-out silence.

Then, he turned, moved to the sink. Even as he methodically cleaned his hands and nails of the remaining grease, he already knew that the man in the store had been left alone too long. Any genuine customer would have come knocking by now, Hux was sure. Experience in the retail sector had taught him how thin entitled patience could stretch, and how terribly quick it would snap.

The act of arming himself came simple enough, the small blaster tucked neatly into his waistband. His dusty bush shirt, made of loose coarse fabric, would mask its slight frame as easily as it did Hux’s own. A reflexive hand passed back through his hair, though it promptly fell forward again. He hadn’t used pomade in years. The ache for it now hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, sudden and unexpected, and so _strong_. With teeth pressed tight together behind white lips, Hux glanced downwards, stared wordless at the scuffed boots that would never take a shine no matter how long or how often they were buffed.

And there he closed his eyes, again. With a slow, deep inhale, he held his breath for a count of four, let it out over eight. He had never been one to shirk his duties, to drag out the moments before a confrontation. He had always made his plans, and then he had given himself over to them without hesitation.

And yet it took more strength than he had ever known to simply place one foot in front of the other, and duck through the workshop door and into the bright glare of the shop beyond.

The customer stood alone, his back facing the counter. But even with a heavy cloak hunched over his shoulders, the hood pulled forward over a half-bowed head, his distinct silhouette had Hux checking a sigh. Some part of him had long since expected this, and yet he’d told himself sternly – and that more than once – that the Emperor of the known universe would never stoop so low as to come to the door of a Birrenese engine merchant himself.

Something like pride kept his voice steady as he asked, in the easy lilt of the Alderanian-Arkanisian patois, “We’re closing, soon. Is there something I can do for you now?”

The turn came slow, leaving his face shadowed and amorphous. Hux felt no surprise, and not even real irritation. He’d always enjoyed his melodrama. But then, the pure aura of _power_ that pulsed about him now surely would have demanded no less. As two hands rose together, Hux noted they were both ungloved. And yet one could hardly tell one of them was synthetic, the other lost to the pyroclastic flows of cursed Mustafa.

Then the hood was back, pooling about his high collar, and Hux felt his world narrowing to the pale skin, the crooked grin, the dark dark eyes that had always been his downfall. It didn’t matter that he’d long known what the man now looked like these days. Even out in the greater farming community of Birren, news of the Emperor came thick and relatively fast. His fashion sense had improved, away from the endless battlefield of the Order. These days he came across as rather stylish, in fact, though the colours and cut remained always somewhat muted, never as extreme as those of the court around him.

“You don’t sound the same.”

The faint hint of what might be construed as disappointment traced across his skin like the smooth edge of a deactivated lightsaber. “Why would I?” Hux asked, and he could not have kept the scorn from it even had he been inclined to attempt it. “An Imperial accent wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous.”

“But you speak it so easily.” The dark head tilted, the too-bright light of the storefront reflecting from the gleaming dark hair. “I never heard you speak anything else.”

His lips pressed tight together. “I’m a quick learner.”

“That’s not it.”

At that, Hux managed to keep his silence. It had never been one of his more natural skills. But he’d not allowed that to stop his mastery of it.

With a sigh, the Emperor shook his head, eyes shifting away to one of the display windows, the dusty street beyond. The release from his steady gaze was but little relief, when he said, “I didn’t realise your mother was from Birren.”

“It’s a matter of public record.” These words came too stiff, utterly at odds with the lilt of his accent. “Or at least, it’s a part of my file. And I assume you have all the clearances you could possibly need, these days.”

His head turned back, expression oddly flat upon those expressive features. “You never spoke of her.”

“This surprises you?”

The expression turned watchful, now – and then he moved, stepping close with quick silent step. What rose in Hux then was nothing if not the sensible urge to step back – and the far more animalistic and base urge to simply turn and flee. Only the weight of the blaster, comforting and warm against his lower back, kept him in place. This one had never been coded to his fingerprint. It would kill at the word of any master, quick and thoughtless, utterly without remorse.

“She died,” the Emperor said, sudden, unexpected. It was almost as peculiar as the fist that clenched about Hux’s own heart, an old pain that never should have had this much power at all, let alone even now.

“She did.”

“Long before you came here,” he added, too soft, and Hux’s own reply came harsh and hardened.

“What’s your point?”

He raised his hands, a strangely conciliatory gesture for a man who held the known universe between his palms. “Only that connection could be made too easily.” And something in the tilt of his head, then, reminded Hux of a mask – of the smooth plastisteel of a black helmet, of the play of light over its dark surface. “I guess I just wondered why you would take the risk.”

“She died when I was four years old.” The defensive tone came hard, and unavoidable; Hux had made many mistakes, but few so purposeful as this one. “And the connection obviously wasn’t that easily made. It’s taken _you_ five years to come here.”

That had one corner of that over-sized mouth curling upward in a strange and crooked grin. “That doesn’t mean it took me all five of those years to work out where you were.”

In the silence that followed, Hux gave nothing away – or at least, that was the thin comfort he permitted himself. In turn the Emperor remained ever watchful, reminiscent of the many statues that had been commissioned of him. But unlike the only one Hux had seen personally, grave and silent at the centre of the capital courtyard, this one had distinct life of its own. He’d never cared much about the Force, before. But he had to, here and now, with it burning so very _bright_. Everything of the Emperor seemed so alive with it as stepped forward, now – just a little. Just a tiny bit closer.

But his eyes had shifted up, and away; above them, his brow furrowed only a little. “They did tell me you hadn’t changed your hair colour,” the Emperor said, his murmur more thoughtful than telling. “I wasn’t quite sure I believed them. It’s very…”

The hand that bridged the distance between them moved slow, almost dream-like; Hux still flinched away from it as if struck by blaster fire at close range. The Emperor’s hand withdrew, brow now far deeper in its furrowing now.

“…distinctive.” But even as he finished the thought he cocked his head, again; his expression remained as smooth as the words. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

He actually snorted at that, light and simple. “No. I didn’t think you did.”

Though the Emperor turned from him then, Hux still felt the man’s attention upon him. It held a familiar pressure, one that first crawled over his skin, then pressed hard enough that he felt it might nearly bruise. But he stood very still, even as the other man began to move. Only his eyes followed the Emperor’s progress about the room, his curiosity bright and very nearly childlike. The bare hands trailed and traced over everything in his path, eyes almost ravenous in their wake. The Ren he remembered had always held himself aloof, rarely deigning to lay his hands upon that which he might simply manipulate by the Force instead.

But then, the Ren he remembered would not have let him live nearly so long as all this.

He turned back, then, sudden; Hux jerked, sudden panic icing his veins at the thought the Emperor had heard the thought as if spoken aloud. But he was merely frowning, eyes already flitting away again. “I hadn’t really thought of you, in a place like this,” he said, a touch too soft, as if again he spoke aloud without quite intending it. But then his eyes narrowed, darkened, fixed upon him. “Don’t all the festivals drive you insane?”

The compulsion to speak fought its way past even the tightness of his throat. “They are…longer than necessary, perhaps.” He swallowed hard, spoke from between gritted teeth. “But they have their place.”

A slight humming assent, and the Emperor looked away again. This time, blunt fingers worked over the window display: the skeleton of a speeder, skinned of its outer hull and disembowelled of all that made it run. “Your mother told you about them?”

“Leave my mother out of this.”

For a moment, he only paused. And then he straightened, looked back, his expression blank. “Why? Because she’s dead?” And then he stepped too close, too quick, and Hux had nowhere left to go when he stood before him, face close enough to kiss. “And you’re _alive_.”

And the knowledge of that prickled over his skin, like drawing too close to a flame that would have no choice but to burn. Those dark eyes were a wellspring of bright memory, and Hux felt the ridiculous urge to _laugh_. It had been almost too easy to falsify his own demise – to have himself logged aboard a command shuttle, to have it shot down from the sky in a rain of fuel and fire, to have his resultant corpse disintegrated, and his old life ended in blazing irreversible defeat.

“How long did you believe me dead?” he asked, too hoarse. The Emperor’s mouth tightened, his breath light against Hux’s cool skin.

“Almost four years.”

“ _That_ long?”

His surprise had the Emperor leaning back, blinking twice. And then he stepped back to match, three entire steps. Hux could still feel him upon his skin even when he shook his head, briefly closed his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, that long.” And then he was opening his eyes, glancing over with something almost like fondness, almost like frustration. “It was your plan, and yet you sound like you didn’t expect it to work.”

With such a dry throat, the words scraped with every breath. “You…” Clearing said throat did little to improve the issue. “You always implied you could feel the deaths of those close to you. Through the Force. No matter the distance between you.” He smiled, now, crooked and hard, and didn’t even entirely know why. “I knew it worked for you with family, but I didn’t know how far else it might go. And if they needed to be related to you by blood.”

“No.” The Emperor’s gaze never once left his. “They don’t need to be.”

This frisson over his skin felt more like the spark of plasma, sharp electric promise. “ _Is_ there a distance limitation to it?”

“Yes. And no. I couldn’t simply _pinpoint_ your location, through the Force.” With his arms now crossed over his broad chest, beneath the heavy rich fabric of the otherwise innocuous cloak, the Emperor permitted himself a half-grin, one more wry than pleased. “But it _did_ tell me you still lived.”

“And it took you so long to notice?”

“It took me that long to _ask_.” His voice had sharpened at Hux’s incredulity, his eyes gone hard. “For the longest time, I didn’t want to look there. To see the place you had always been.” Something had changed in the tone, now, more liquid than mere ice; his tongue flicked out, sudden and pink over his lips. “To find it empty,” he added, and paused. “To find you gone.”

Hux licked his own dry lips, tasted the ghost of old blood. “And now you know where I am.”

“I’ve known for a long time.” The insouciant shrug matched not at all the intensity of the gaze still fixed upon him. “But you can’t stay here. Surely you know that.”

His eyes closed, brief but accepting. “I know that.”

“I want you to come to Naboo. We have time, now.” Though he had not stepped close, again, his presence again pressed against Hux from every angle, from every side. “We could…have dinner.”

For a moment, frank surprise made him think he had hallucinated perhaps the entire encounter. And then he let out a sharp bark of laughter; the answer that followed still was flatly given. “ _Dinner_.”

“And talk.” It came out almost defensive, and so at odds with the holos he had seen of the Emperor. There, he had been always glittering and dark, words reverberating across the non-space between them – eyes boring into his own as if they would drink of everything he was, and everything he would never be.

When Hux spoke, again, it was very slow, and all too careful. “You want me to come to dinner on Naboo,” he said, “and _talk_.”

Again, the shrug had an odd tilt to it; more the defensive posture of one uncertain, than the gesture of a man who could call war down upon the worlds with scarcely a thought. “There are many things we need to talk about.”

And Hux was nothing if not so very, very tired. “There are.” He had half-turned, his eyes strange and almost blind, when the voice spoke slow and small behind him.

“I’ve missed you.”

And he closed his eyes, and wondered if any dream could be so strange as this. “Do I have to come now?” he asked, rote, removed. “Or can I pack my things?”

“Come to the port, when you’re ready.” When Hux glanced back, the Emperor had straightened, had taken on something of the persona he presented to the galaxy. “I have a ship there.” A flick of his wrist, and a beep rose from one of the counters: his datapad’s message chime. When he spoke again, it was with the frank command that reminded Hux of his own mortality, and how fragile it could be. “I’ve transmitted the ident and access codes. Come aboard, when you’re ready.”

A moment later, and the hood was back up. Hux almost regretted it; his hair had remained so thick and dark, not a hint of grey. But then, he was still young. Hux could feel his own age, only five years the greater, heavy in his bones – and heavier still in his mind.

“Good evening,” he said, bowing his head low. For a moment, there was only silence. And then, a sigh.

“And you.” He did not look up. “Hux.”

Only when the door opened did Hux look up to watch him go. And only when the shadow had vanished into the encroaching gloaming of evening did he turn away, knees weak, spine a loosened fraying string. But he held himself upright and tall. He’d always had to do such things himself.

Still, but a moment passed before he was crossing the room to the small ‘fresher at the rear. Hux did not even know he was nauseated until he was doubled over the basin, heaving up his guts, and with them the acidic remnants of the meagre meal he’d barely bothered with some hours ago.

It seemed a long time before it settled. Yet when he straightened, the motion only left him confronted by his own reflection in the dusty mirror. Almost seven standard years since he’d last seen the man who had become emperor – and here stood another one, the one who had once been a general. That one who had died in a malfunction aboard a shuttle moving between orbiting starship and the temporary imperial complex on Coruscant. It had been just an accident, in the end. He’d never been formally arrested, had not been brought before the throne in custody or in chains. The Emperor had simply summoned one of his generals, and Hux had attended upon him.

And then, the general had died.

His hair was so much longer now, and it tended to darken in colour with increasing length. His full beard and moustache were by turns strangely lighter, though they masked the pale skin and weak jaw beneath. Some lines, and a little weathering, completed the changes; much as he’d tried to spend more time outdoors, an almost-lifetime aboard star destroyers had made such a lifestyle barely tolerable. But he no longer wore the padded and tailored uniform of those distant days; his typical clothing had become instead a shapeless woollen shirt, oversized because it only came in one size, the trousers thick fabric with more pockets than one person could use. His boots had been designed to last for years, which was a good thing because he couldn’t afford to replace them any more often than that.

And he sighed. In this little room, he was shut away from everything – the general he had been, the mechanic he now was. And he had one decision to make for them both. He could keep some dignity, if he just handed himself over to the Emperor now. Of course, even in the Emperor’s universe, there were still places he could go. It wasn’t as though he’d ever been stupid enough to believe this would last forever. There were always possibilities, plans, simulations…even when one knew what the end result would inevitably be. And Hux _knew_ what that result would be.

And yet, he did what was needful.

He fled.

 

*****

 

It might not be public. That formed the extent of what comfort he could take from contemplating his eventual fate. As a decorated general of the Order, presumed this many years dead, and also one never _known_ to have openly rebelled against his Emperor – there seemed little point in holding him up as a warning, as an example. It also had to count somewhat in his favour that Hux had not even spent the intervening years conspiring against him. He’d only taken up his short, sad life in a Birren agricultural village, repairing and rebuilding farm machinery and droids. It seemed hardly a rebellion worth the pageantry of a gala execution.

As the ship smoothly descended to break atmosphere, Hux turned his head to watch their approach. His wrists had been bound, but he’d been left otherwise alone in the main cabin. It was certainly better than a cramped cell, which he presumed even this later model of the command shuttle would possess, though he knew he would not be leaving the ship unescorted. The world below continued to speed past, but already it began to solidify into identifiable shapes and sights. Lovely Naboo: the realm of queens and rightful justice. Hux had never seen it outside of holos. He had never particularly wanted to.

The capital unfolded next before him, a picturesque tableau of wide boulevards, circular pavilions, and the green-crowned domes of the Imperial palace. Even had he had someone to speak to, Hux would have remained wordless. Watching, instead, he catalogued a world he had never expected to see in person, and wondered at the waste of it all.

They landing gear had hardly touched ground before a pair of Stormtroopers entered the cabin. Rising, Hux remained as wordless as they did. But they did not approach closer than the opened doorway, though they held their blasters at low ease before their hips. Hux had scarcely a moment to assess what changes and upgrades had been made before footsteps echoed behind them. As they parted, rigid and true, Hux could see a new figure now boarding the ship. Darkly-clad and masked, he knew it immediately for one of the Rens.

“The Emperor wishes a word.”

He’d had long practice in evenly meeting the blank gaze of a black visor. “I imagine he does.”

“Are you going to continue to be difficult, or can I trust you after I remove these cuffs?”

And Hux only stared, spine straight, feet firmly planted. “Do what you feel is best.”

Even with the vocal modulator the Ren wore, Hux actually heard it snort. A second later, and the manacles loosened, then fell from his wrists. Hux ignored where they clanked to the ground, stepping out and between the ‘troopers, and into the light. Squinting against it, he stepped forward with sure speed, as if not blinded. He did not get far before being bundled into a speeder. Again, there were no restraints, but with a Knight of Ren less than an arms-length from him, it was not as if it mattered.

Hux waited until they had entered the main flow of the city’s not-insignificant traffic before he spoke. “Where are we going?”

“The palace.” The mask watched him still, faceless and still. “It’s almost the dinner hour.”

And then, it fell to a silence Hux felt no particular desire to break; his stomach felt to have turned itself inside out, and he had never been less hungry in his life. Instead, he looked out, again, to the world beyond the transparisteel. The Empire, so very new and still within its bloody birth-throes, could hardly be said to be at peace. But royal Naboo seemed content enough, soft and golden against an arching blue-clear sky.

The ‘troopers had been left with the shipyard, but Hux could not quite mask his surprise when they came before the palace, and there was not a guard in sight to meet them. But with a Ren by his side, marching him into the echoing halls, he knew there was nowhere left to run. His footsteps echoed like a death-knell, and he felt his heartbeat hard behind each one.

But it was still not a cell that he was led to now. When the door opened before him, it revealed a wide chamber, with branching rooms stretching in either direction. Barely across the threshold, Hux paused, and felt all sensible thought slip clean away.

And the modulated voice rose behind him, even and mechanised. “You can bathe, and dress, here.” Hux turned, too quick, head already aching. Of course, there was nothing to read upon its masked face, even when it added with flat grace, “For dinner.”

He didn’t think he had words. They came anyway. “You’re _serious_.”

The gloved hands remained still at its sides. “It is the Emperor’s wish.”

“That I have _dinner_ with him?”

The incredulous tone had no power over a Ren. “You had already said you would come.”

“Well.” And he closed his eyes, took a breath, and then opened them again. “Yes, well, I suppose I did, didn’t I.”

Left alone, Hux began to map out his current predicament with a depressing clarity of purpose. The timepiece on the mantel suggested that, even if the Emperor dined fashionably late, he would not have an overly generous amount of time to prepare himself. Standing in the ‘fresher, Hux took in his appearance, and knew it for a lost cause all over again.

His most recent weeks on the run had hardly had done much for his appearance. Hux supposed it did not really matter, in the end, though after he had showered he trimmed the beard back some. He still spared his hair the blade. Instead he bound it back, in a low stubby ponytail. This much accomplished, he stared at himself, lips tight, eyes cold. There was not really that much difference, compared to the last time he’d looked at himself this way, and this long. Except that had been on Birren, and that life was now as lost to him now as the one he’d possessed before it.

He’d known there had been no point in running. But he’d done it anyway. It had been much the same as the first time: knowing that he could have, should have, just gone down with the ship. But he’d run then, too. There were those who romanticised noble death. To Hux’s mind, the concept had always been little more than an ending, and a disgracefully wasteful one at that. He’d always thought it better to live, because only then would he know the chance there was something more he might do, might else he might change. The dead changed nothing. The dead became nothing.

Hux closed his eyes. But he was still alive, yet. Opening his eyes, he turned to the clothing neatly laid out upon the stand, and set his jaw. There was still more he might yet do, even while held tight within the hands of the Emperor himself.

The Ren had not gone far, as it turned out; it lingered beyond the door to his borrowed chambers, and upon catching sight of Hux it turned, gliding down the corridor with wordless speed. Hux checked a sigh, and followed. The dining room, as it turned out, was just as empty of life as the corridors themselves. Hux found that no real surprise. The Emperor would prefer to make his entrance on his own terms. For his own part, Hux simply stood at the end of the table, waiting and still, and wondered at how long this might take.

“I would have thought you’d just take a seat.”

Pressing lips together, Hux kept his eyes ahead. “Why would I not observe good manners?”

“Well,” and the Emperor shifted silent across the mosaic floor, brushing close enough to have him shiver, “you _are_ very late for dinner, already. It’s not like you.”

Still he did not look around. “We’re not who we used to be.”

“Hux.” The name cut through him like a blade. “Sit _down_.”

He’d been bred to command – both to give, and to take. And he took this one in silence, eyes fixed upon the rich grain of the swirling wood. He shifted not an inch even as the Emperor moved to take his place not at the head of the table, but rather by Hux’s right hand. The first course was almost immediately served, for which he was inordinately glad.

A thick soup had been poured into elegant low bowls, fragrant and spicy, chunky bread arrayed along one side. Hux fixed his eyes open the light garnish of cream and herbs, stomach churning. He had not eaten properly in days. But then, he’d never had much of an appetite. He allowed himself only small bites, and long chews; he’d lowered the level of the liquid by not even a quarter before the Emperor spoke, his own bowl near-emptied.

“You _can_ eat.” And he had the audacity to sound almost amused. “It’s what dinner is for.”

Hux held the spoon with what he prayed would be construed as dignity, and still stared into the thick redness of it. “I am not particularly hungry.” For the first time, he looked upward, words flat. “And if there are more courses, I should reserve room for those too, yes?”

The Emperor only raised a curious eyebrow, one shoulder moving in single shrug. “I suppose you were never much of an eater,” he said, and returned to his own dish. Strangely stung, Hux allowed the silence. And then, in a burst he had not expected the vehemence of, he spoke again.

“I ate what was necessary.”

“Yes. You did.” The Emperor’s own empty dish was pushed aside, and he reclined back into his chair, bare hands steepled before his smooth features. “Do you want more?”

Hux blinked, both spoon and hand stilled over the damned soup. “What?”

“Or should we just stop this now?”

Staring, he lowered his hand; the spoon barely clicked against the wood as he let it go. “If that is your wish.”

Hux had signed more than his particular fair share of death warrants in his time. Putting such approval to his own held something dangerously close to relief, for all he hardly wished to acknowledge it as such. But the Emperor’s eyes had narrowed, mouth turned in something more a grimace than a smirk. And then he was leaning back, head tilted, silent and watchful. It made it easier for Hux himself to observe him in turn, lean in his grey-black robes of state. It was less the encompassing garment of Palpatine, and more reminiscent of the old Jedi Order. But the garments were finer, tailored to his own form – and his dark hair, a riot of curls, had a glittering silver diadem set over it all.

“What if I asked you _your_ wish?”

Hux frowned, the answer reflexive and too quick. “I don’t see how it would be relevant.”

That made him sigh, one hand coming forward to cup his chin as an elbow rested upon the table. Hux could barely bite his tongue back about simple manners. “Why not?” he demanded, and frustration echoed through the words. “I’m _asking_.”

Raising his chin, Hux kept each word slow and simple. “You brought me here for your own purpose.” But he couldn’t quite stop the wry smirk that accompanied them now. “I would hardly think my opinion on the matter would be of any import.”

“ _Hux_.” And his fist slammed down upon the table. Very still, now, Hux said nothing. And then he watched as the hand first loosened, then pressed to the table, then withdrew back to the man himself. The Emperor was always known for his calm, patient and preternatural against even the strongest of odds. The Hux who had lived once on Birren might have laughed himself sick to see such a ridiculous turn of events. If he’d ever thought to find anything funny anymore.

“Hux,” he tried, again. “Why did you run?”

A shrug, far looser than his taut shoulders and jaw should have permitted. “Instinct.”

“Your instinct told you to leave me?”

The incredulous tone struck him as deeply unfair. And he was marked for death, anyway. “My instinct told me not to simply wait for death,” he said, the words snapped and cold. “It told me to make it work for me, in whatever way I could turn it.”

“Death?” He spoke blankly, eyes narrowed. Then, they widened, his voice rising. “You thought I wanted to _kill_ you?”

A laugh escaped, grating and bitter. “Why would you let me live?”

“Why would I want you _dead_?”

And Hux sat back in his own chair, one hand rising to press against the ache of one temple. “Well, I suppose these days it’s just the principle of the thing. I don’t hold any illusions that I would be able to make any move against you _now_.” He couldn’t stop the low chuckle. “But, in the day? Perhaps it’s just arrogant of me to say so, but I imagine I was the only one who could have challenged your authority over the Order and her armada.”

And the Emperor’s dark eyes remained upon him, steepled hands again before his lips. The fingers remained, as always, bare of any jewellery. “And did you _want_ to?”

“No.” The honesty of it surprised him, had him rolling even his own eyes. “…well, perhaps some part of me wanted it. I mean, what you have now? I wanted the same thing, once.”

His eyebrows lowered. “But not now.”

And he snorted, the laughter as hollow as the place where his heart ought to have beat still. “Not even then, really. Not like this.” And he glanced down to his soup, cold and congealing now. “I wanted Snoke gone as much as you did.”

“But not me.”

And he looked up, unable to keep the flash from his eyes. “Why are we discussing this?”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Long fingers, blunt and callused still, closed about the fragile stem of the goblet before him; Hux’s own had been filled with golden wine, though his was but water. “You thought I would have you killed,” he repeated, wondering, more to himself; Hux scowled, but did not take up his own glass.

“You said yourself that you wanted me out of your life.” And he couldn’t keep the fierce sudden bitterness from any of it. “That was why you _left_.”

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“But I wished you had.”

That was an honesty he hadn’t expected of himself. In truth, it had been – _good_. Even with what had happened in the interim, those days were fond enough, if only in gilded memory. It had never been a real relationship, perhaps, but it had been: _something_. There had been quick, hurried fucks in empty meeting rooms and training salles, too many to count; they had ruined one another up against the walls of empty corridors, or taken each other on knees in ‘freshers and in console rooms.

It had only ever happened only once or twice in their own quarters. Hux remembered better the fumbling and breathless cursing in the close confines of a TIE cockpit. Even now, he had no idea now how they had even ended up there. When they were done, he had all but limped away, muscles cramped and half-liquid, his dignity now strictly imaginary. But he’d been climbing one of the staircases out of the hangar when broad hands had closed again on bruised hips, yanking his trousers down, greedy mouth pressed hard over his aching hole.

There, in the stairwell, they’d done it all over again. Hux’s hands had been clenched about the cold alusteel, bent over and forward, breathless with every thrust Ren had forced upon him. He’d still been naked – he hadn’t bothered to dress, had just followed Hux here like a blind man seeking blazing sunlight, stopping only when he’d had him again. One broad arm had braced across his chest, pulling him back against his own, palm cupping tight one shoulder. And the movement had dislodged his cap, falling over and down. Hux had simply watched it go, vanished into the darkness, his hair in his eyes and his voice in rising slow whine.

“Snoke forbid me from you.”

Hux looked up from the wine, eyes wider. “What?”

“He said you were a distraction.” The words were patient, simple – but his eyes were too dark, too wide, and his throat worked in sudden convulsive swallow. “And he was _right_.”

They had been long and bitter weeks, those between Ren’s cold rejection and the eventual fall of Starkiller. After, Hux had watched him suspended in bacta, grossly illuminated wounds half-healed and eyes only half-closed. It had been as if he lingered in the liminal space between merciful death and cruel aching life. Hux’s own mind had in turn been a riot of perfect disaster, with his life all in tatters around him. But he’d drawn it tight about his own thin shoulders, such small comfort against the cold of it all, and he had carried on. He’d done so, until there was nothing left for him to carry at all.

“Your Master thought that a little rough sex would distract you from your work?” he asked, but any scorn he might have managed lay buried beneath sudden exhaustion; in turn the Emperor shook his head, silver dancing like starlight upon his dark hair.

“If it had been only sex, he wouldn’t have cared.”

He glanced down to his right hand, found it a light fist upon the table. “But that’s all it was.”

“It wasn’t.” A pause, strange and tremulous. “For me.”

Hux closed his eyes against that whisper. Then almost immediately he opened them, again; he would not be called a coward, not here, and not now. “I can’t do this.”

“Hux.”

“ _No_.” And it echoed like cannonshot about the great hall; his hands fisted now upon his knees, but he did not kid himself that the table hid that from the Emperor at his side. “It was just sex. _Good_ sex, mostly. But only that.”

He had to force himself to meet those eyes, now. Much as he’d had to then, even when they had been so often masked behind the visor. Those had been endless days, where he’d woken every morning to bitter tell himself yet again that he would today manage to see the other man as only his co-commander. He would keep it official, keep it cold. He would not go chasing after the validation of a person who had already had the pleasure of his vulnerability. And yet, it had never quite abated: that desire for his cooperation. For his approval. For his _companionship_.

“Hux.” He paused, and for a moment his lips seemed to tremble. Then, stronger, harder: “I brought you here because I want you to stay.”

In the quiet that followed, Hux looked down. It was a good thing they’d never called another course. His already small appetite had quite completely vanished.

 _But you need it back_ , his mind supplied, helpful and infuriating both _. Because you’re alive. Because you get to **live**_.

And yet, the anger he should have felt – for a life long wasted, for a world long lost – would not come. Only exhaustion filled him now, his head bowing, his mind heavy and bleak. “What is there here, for me?”

“A _life_.” And two hands shot forward, closed over his own right; even as Hux sat upright, eyes wide, the Emperor drew close, dark eyes seeming to fill the world. “I can do this alone. I _have_ done it, alone.” His grip tightened. “But I don’t have to.” Hux could feel his fingerbones groaning, the skin bruising and too tight. “I don’t even _want_ to.”

And he raised his left hand, reached forward, closed it over the Emperor’s own. “But you didn’t do it alone.” It wasn’t delicate, or even precisely anything but tired. “You had the Order behind you.”

The Emperor let him first loosen his grip, then draw his hands back and away. “Until it left me.”

Shaking his head, Hux looked longingly to the wine, and then away again. “It’s still here.”

“No,” he said, sharp. “It’s not.” And then, the broad shoulders sagged. “Or it wasn’t. Until now.”

It made no sense. It could not possibly be true. But Hux sat here, now, in borrowed finery before the Emperor himself, and he knew he teetered upon the very edge of a new kind of death. “You want me to stay here.”

“I want to try again,” he said, though almost immediately he shook his head, the muted light of the dining room skipping like starlight over his coronet. “No – I want to try something _new_.”

His head ached with abominable pain. He hadn’t known anything like it, not since he’d watched his own shuttle explode in the high atmosphere of Coruscant eight years ago. “No.”

His startled surprise might have been amusing, once. “ _No_?”

No-one told the Emperor _no_ – or so Hux assumed. But then, he’d never been able to say anything but to the Master of the Knights of Ren, once. “No, I don’t…I just…”

“You can go back to Birren.” The words were hard, hurting, almost helpless. “If that is what you want. I will allow it.”

Hux closed his eyes, and this time did not open them. The exhaustion of it had been almost more than he could bear; he’d almost been _glad_ , to see the pristine white armour rising up out of the stews of the slavers market where they had found him but a cycle ago. The days before had been nothing but running, never stopping, rarely sleeping. Oh, he’d made it easy enough to _begin_ his run. Escaping Birren and the Inner Rim had been the simplest part. But he’d taken no pleasure in it, for all he’d planned it almost to perfection.

“I just want to go home,” he said, and the truth of it burned. And the Emperor only nodded.

“I see.” With his bent head, the light reflected only from the glittering coronet. “Would you wait until morning, or will I arrange the transport now?”

Silence reigned for what seemed a long time. When he spoke, his voice felt too small for his throat, his chest, the immense room that still closed in on him from every side. “I…didn’t think you’d actually allow it.”

“I don’t want to.” He blinked, just once. “But I know I wouldn’t be able to keep you here, if you didn’t want to stay.”

And Hux could only stare. “There would be ways.”

“Yes.” And he gazed back, still, almost sad. “There would be.”

Only when Hux had risen, making it perhaps halfway across the room, did he speak again. “I only saw a little of it, that day I came to you.” He glanced back, found the Emperor seated yet, hands fisted on the table before him, entire body rigid, for all the words came calm enough. “Your home, I mean.”

“Did you _want_ to see it?”

The words were blurted out, almost immediately regretted. But those dark eyes fixed upon his, and Hux could think suddenly only of the bright blue sky he had descended through, to reach this place.

“You could come back. Just…to see.” And then, sanity returned, on more counts than only the one. “Although of course you have other matters to attend—”

“I’ll come.”

This was a fever dream. He had taken some ghastly wound in that cursed market, had ignored it, and now it had turned septic and weeping. None of this was real. None of it was true. And yet Hux found himself staring into those dark eyes, and knew only the truth of it.

“This is a mistake.”

The Emperor smiled, this man with the power of a galaxy in his heart, and in his hands. “I’m going to make it anyway.”

“Well.” He closed his eyes, the headache brilliant and blinding both. “Some things never do change, do they.”

 

*****

 

The autumn season had begun its approach in his absence. This was a time for the harvest, and for the hunt – and the air had turned both crisper, and cooler. Away from Naboo, his chest felt looser, wider. As he stepped down from the anonymous small shuttle the Emperor himself had piloted, Hux breathed in deep. And then he turned to the silent figure at his back, robed and cowled and still.

“How long will you stay?”

“I don’t know.” Even in the deep shadows of his hood, the dark eyes glittered. “How long will you allow it?”

Hux had never thought he would ever be the type to go mad. These days, he wondered if he’d simply never noticed the signs over the length of all the lives he’d lived. “You have work to do, surely.”

“Not at this particular moment, no.”

And he couldn’t help himself, the lilting voice taking on a sharp utilitarian edge he hadn’t utilised in years. “So who do you get to do all your work now?”

“That you’re not there, you mean?” Even with the masking fabric, his faint amusement floated across the space between them. “I do it myself. The same as I always did.” There, it faded, his voice grave and deep. “There were reasons why our work never aligned well or easily, you know.”

And he’d already half-turned, jaw tight. “So you’ve said.” And then, incredibly, he called back to the Emperor of the known universe: “Are you coming, then?”

“Lead the way.”

Somehow he even bit back a snippy response that he already clearly knew where they were going. Still, Hux did indeed lead, though the Emperor followed close; it was not close enough to feel his touch or his breath, but somehow Hux knew both as they moved through the darkening night streets. Never bustling, they had turned all but dead now; farmers rarely outlasted the sun, save for those nights of the endless festivals the Birrenese populace indulged in at every opportunity.

Still, they passed a few familiar faces, all of them turning in clear surprise. Hux gave them first brief acknowledgement; he then accompanied it with vague assurances that he had indeed returned from his unexpected disappearance, and that he was also healthy and hale. Their eyes shifted sightless over the cloaked figure at his side without pause or interest; from the Emperor’s silence, his lack of active presence was obviously intentional. The fact that they hardly questioned the peculiarities of Hux’s absence itself likely had much the same source.

The store and the workshop both remained untouched, if dusty in new and faintly interesting ways. His brief living quarters above them proved much the same. The tour that Hux gave was tight, taut, very nearly embarrassed; after seeing the easy opulence of the palace, the Emperor seemed outsized, supremely unsuited to such a peasant’s place.

And yet, as it ended, something in him seemed almost small – almost _lost_. The air was cool indoors without the heating on, and still Hux felt stifled, throat stiff and sore. He had led them outside without quite realising; in the yard beyond the back door, littered with the shells of speeders and farm machinery, he breathed deep, and long.

And then he looked to the Emperor, and could not quite keep the impatience from his words. “What’s wrong?”

“I just…” He’d pushed the hood back, inside. And now he raked his hand back through his hair, shook his head. He’d changed, in the years between Kylo Ren and the Emperor. Somehow, impossibly, he seemed to have changed again. “…it isn’t where I imagined you to be.”

“You thought I was _dead_.”

That had him meeting his eyes – wry, and so very tired. “I never wanted to accept that.”

“But you did.”

“Only for a little while.” There was something almost shy in the tilt of his head. “And I don’t have to, now.”

A sigh, and Hux turned away, towards the latched gate. He hadn’t asked for this. He’d never asked for this. “Let’s go for a walk.”

The air still felt like a stimulant to his lungs, fresh and somehow free. It made him walk just a little faster, just a little lighter, for all it made no difference; the Emperor easily kept his pace, long legs revealed. He’d shucked the cloak before they had left, despite the chill of the dying season in the air. In the daytime, there might have been song there too, rising from the workers and the birds alike. The sky lay silent, now, save for the occasional hooting call of a night-raptor about its hunt.

“It’s the harvest season,” Hux said, sudden. He hadn’t brought a coat, either. But then, he revelled now in the coolness upon his skin, the starlight in his eyes. Such strange seeds could be sown in the dark, and in the night.

“Do you grow?”

He snorted, though was hardly unkind. “Not myself. But I own this land. Others work it for me, in return for the mechanical services I can provide.” He raised one hand, moved it toward the direction in which they walked. “And this little part of forest is part of it. It blends into other holdings, but it’s pleasant enough to walk through, when I feel the urge.”

The Emperor’s dark eyes looked to the hushed darkness; they were as peculiar and deep as one another. “I suppose I thought you’d stay close to a city.” And then, he grimaced, as if regretting his own thoughts. “I mean, you still work with machines and droids here. But…”

“It’s anonymous.”

At that he snorted, glanced over with a sceptical tilt he had seen often enough upon the features of Kylo Ren. “You could have lost yourself in a bigger city. One far from the Core planets, at that.”

The memory came strong: of a voice raised in song, roughened hands working dough, the smell sweet-sour to a young nose. He might have been able to make it himself, here. Certainly he remembered how. But he’d never tried. He’d never quite thought he could. And Hux merely turned his eyes to the sky, to constellations he’d had to learn all over again. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“I think it _was_ a good idea.” That had Hux’s head turning, heart twisted in sudden sharp surprise. But the Emperor only looked ahead, shaking his head, more at himself than the man by his side. “There were just too many things you could never have known about the Force.”

The exhaustion, again, hung heavy about his neck. Even a cut noose still held the weight of its braided bleeding rope. “I should have known,” he muttered. “There would have been ways I could have found out. If I’d just—”

“Hux.”

Just one word. And yet, the Emperor had been the first to speak it in years. And the only one, at that. “Are you coming?” he said, stepping forward, not looking back. “I’ll show you the stream.”

Even in the darkness, Hux knew his way; the path through the close forest itself lay clear enough, for all that the shadows hid both its edges, and its destination. But the Emperor moved easy enough at his side, wordless and without complaint. Yet, when they reached its ending, there he raised one hand – and in the hushed darkness, a small white light flickered to life. Hux could only watch in stunned silence as it freed itself from his palm, rose in soft flight, and settled upon a hanging branch just above their heads.

He could only stare at it for a moment; its light was dim, softly lit, but it had been as if staring into the heart of a blazing sun. “…could you always do that?”

“No.” His next words came so sudden, stumbling, more those of a child than a man grown and crowned. “…did you _really_ think I would kill you?”

With his back to the water, Hux opened his arms wide, and only shrugged. “Can’t you tell?”

His hands fisted at his sides, eyes blazing and bright in the silver-streaked darkness. “I don’t want to take it from your mind!” And the frustration poured from him in almost tangible wave, voice rising; in the distance, the fluttering panic of some night-creature disturbed first rose, then fell in crashing grief. And the Emperor’s face remained pale, strained, desperate. “I want to hear it from _you_!”

The water still ran, at his back. Hux turned, glanced down. Sometimes, it sounded like it was laughing. He could not decide what it sounded like now. “We were rivals,” he began, and got no further; at his back, the Emperor blew out a sharp, frustrated breath.

“ _Before_ that.”

And he turned, his abdomen tight and twisting, sudden fury rising up like bile in his burning throat. “What did that matter? You ended it, and made it clear that whatever it was, it was _over_!” His mouth warped with words he could not harness, ugly and aching. “And it was just se—”

“Was it really?” Hux had forgotten how quick he could move; the words were hoarsely spoken now, against his skin, and so very close. “ _Was_ it?”

A slow exhale, and he did not bother to mask any of it now. “No. No, not really.”

Yet it was not enough; he sagged forward, eyes upon the slight ground still between them. “But you let it go,” he said, wondering, hurt – and Hux’s own anger rose, again, cresting upon a furious harsh wave.

“What was I supposed to do?” he shouted. “I am the one who _faked his own death_ and left his entire life behind because of _you_ —”

“I didn’t _know_!” Hands closed about his shoulders, bruise-hard, eyes wild dark space. “I should have…I shouldn’t have…but I couldn’t…” And there, they fell away. Yet he did not step back. “…but I’m here now.”

And Hux shook his head. “You are.”

“…is it too late?”

Something in him wanted only to laugh. This man had stood up before the galaxy entire, the last of the Jedi dead at his feet and the senate in burning ruin at his back, and had accepted no prisoners. He had taken what he wanted without regret. And yet here he stood, everything about him a question, a plea. But Hux knew there would be no point in turning away now. There would be no other ending, in this. “Does it matter?” he asked, and it was almost gentle, almost only to himself. And the Emperor’s lips, so familiar, so full, almost trembled over his words.

“It matters to _me_.”

Time had taken much. But sometimes, it seemed, time had never changed anything at all. And now Hux surrendered, head moving softly forward until their foreheads pressed together. There, still at last, he only sighed. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

“My name.” This close, the words ghosted across his lips, a gift from the Emperor’s own. “My name is Kylo.”

Hux had never used it, not even in his own mind – and certainly, never aloud. It balanced so strange, and so delicate, upon the very tip of his tongue. “… _Kylo_.”

As if it were a command, Kylo began to drift down, and to his knees. He always _had_ been so lovely, there. And with his eyes turned up, filled with darkness fit enough to swallow the reflection of all the stars above, Kylo raised his hands to move them now over the borrowed clothes before him. Watching through half-lidded eyes of his own, Hux made no move.

“Do you want this?”

Honesty had never been this simple, nor ever so easy. “I never stopped.”

His cock, removed, was yet almost entirely soft. Kylo nuzzled against it all the same, first with lips, then with cheek. Even as Hux released a slow and trembling breath, Kylo took one of his own, let it go on a low chuckle; his eyes had flooded with something dangerously close to mischief, now.

“Kylo—”

But it was too late, Kylo already bowing his head to the rising task before him. The light flutter of those ridiculous eyelashes, as over-long and over-sized as the rest of him, made Hux sigh, even as he closed his own eyes, and braced himself against the tree at his back.

The rough bark scraped across his palms as his fingers tightened; he would have splinters, come morning. It hardly seemed to matter, his dick already hardening beneath the light drag of lips, the faint flutter of familiar fingertips. A light fist formed, moved in slow twist from tip to base; without lubricant, it was sweet soft burn, and Hux opened his eyes.

“Careful, Kylo.”

And he snorted. “You act like I’ve never done this before.”

“But have we? I mean, _really_?”

“Well.” He chuckled, light, almost like mourning. “Maybe not.”

And he leaned forward; so easily his lips slid down the length of him, hot and heavy. Hux scarcely felt the thump of his head against the trunk, but still he saw white, and silver, and _stars_. And when he closed his eyes, again, he still heard the sound of night around them. The village, distant now, would be asleep. But there was another world entire, here, and it was yet awake.

It was still _alive_.

Without thought, one hand traced a familiar line, down the length of the arched back before him. Curling forward, Hux let his fingers move beneath the belt, into his trousers. And there he paused, felt laughter bubbling in his abdomen even as Kylo withdrew, glanced upward, lips as damp as the cock itself.

“No underwear, your majesty?” A click of his tongue, and he shook his head with a general’s frank disapproval. “How very _scandalous_.”

A growl, and he _rose_ – like an animal awakened from the darkness, born of the night and the black. But starlight glittered in his eyes and crowned his hair even as he took Hux’s waist between his hands, and brought him down there with his own self. There, with the leaves and the moss and the dampness of the earth beneath him, Hux kept his eyes open, and looked to the sky even as he thrust his hips. Above him Kylo took what he wanted, mouth over his dick and hands under his cheeks, pressing him up as though he drank from the fount of all life. After, when it was done, he lowered him, gentle and back to the earth. The general would never have allowed such treatment, such ritual.

But Hux, he only watched as the Emperor knelt over him, haloed by the night sky. With trousers opened, his cock released, he moved his hand. Even as Hux rolled his eyes at the display, Kylo chuckled; a moment later, his breath hitched, his hand stuttered. But he spilled not a drop, catching it all within the cradle of his own palm. There he raised his hand, and careful, thoughtful, Kylo set about licking himself clean.

And even his dick, soft and sated for the meantime, twitched to see it. “Filthy as always,” Hux observed, and Kylo gave him an arch look.

“You like it.” Taking a particularly long lick now, tongue flattened against the palm of his hand, he drew out the motion before asking with idle ease, “Why do you think I did it, the first time?”

Closing his eyes only made the memory more vivid: of the night he’d gone to his quarters, at the end of a long and bitter shift, and had found Ren there. Unmasked and utterly naked, he had laid himself out upon Hux’s own bed without invitation. One callused hand already worked his ridiculous dick almost to release. Hux had only let him away with it because the messy, furious orgasm that soon followed had left that oversized body as pliant sleepy prey. Before the night was through and his next shift begun, Hux had fucked him three times. And then they had done it again, and again, and again.

“I can’t come back with you.” Even as Kylo stiffened, Hux rose, caught his face between his hands. “Not yet.”

Something of the clouds cleared, in those impossible dark eyes. “But you will.”

And, true though it was, Hux could not help the challenge. “What, does the Force tell you that?”

“No.” He wore no smile, save for that which shimmered in his eyes. “You do.”

And that had him turning, rolling over upon his back. He told himself that he didn’t care for the filth and the dirt, that these were not his own clothes anyway. He still couldn’t bring himself to care. “So what?” he asked, staring again at the sky. “You want me to be the general, again?” And he could not help but turn his gaze, again. “ _Your_ general?”

But Kylo looked only ahead. “I want you to be my co-ruler.”

“What, because we worked _so_ well together in the past?”

When he looked over, now, Hux could see he had taken no wound from Hux’s words, for all it had been only instinct that had sharpened them. “It’s only you and me, now.” His smile burned strangely sweet for a man who could set fire to the galaxy entire. “And we can do whatever we want.”

Looking to the sky, the scattering of stars across its broad width, Hux shivered to remember the scarlet burn of purest power. “I suppose we can.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

And then, just like that: he was gone. Hux rose slower, arms coming about himself, not quite able to stave off the shiver that followed. Closing his eyes, now, he could only hear the sound of the forest. As if he had been but a dream. As if he had never been at all.

“Kylo?”

“Yes?”

The answer came quick, and so very close. And Hux rose, steady and tall amongst the ashes of another life. He could taste embers upon his lips, and fire upon his tongue. The air about him thrummed with the rich potential of sudden rebirth, thick and cloying, rich with salt and iron. And he smiled, and looked again to the stars he had once known so well.

“Call me Armitage. The first, even.”

And the answering laughter drew him in like death, and like life – and now, Hux willingly went to them both.


End file.
